Schleef - Thats a good question Flashcards
Individual preferences
Consciously making decisions
- Looking at individual student preferences – need that degree for the career you want
- Some people pick that degree because of the intellectual challenge
- Others think about it as social justice or changing the world (social justice reason)
Rarely include uncertainty or default
Parental influence
- Not so much directly
- Subtle hints
- Indirectly in terms of the educational achievements of our parents or their occupational choices
- Influences us
- Obtain similar lifestyles to what they have
Social Class
How it appears to be related to the decisions students make when they go to university
Rather than emphasising choice, she is looking at social forces that are bigger than us and influence our choices
Influences our life chances, whether or not we can afford to go to university
SES – we will only look at certain things as being realistic options
Cultural capital
Indirectly affects us in terms of our values and beliefs
Our interpersonal skills that will help us be successful in the things that we want to do
How cultural capital is very important, and is one of our social forces that influences us but we are not really aware of it
data and methods
Semi-structured interviews with 37 law students and 42 business students
-Prestigious private universities
How did it happen that you came to law [or business] school?
Students’ motivations
Education of students’ parents
Occupations of students’ parents
Goal
Coded the different responses she gave in a way to understand the key motivations for these students to end up where they are
Wants to see whether or not their parents are transmitting their educational levels or there degree of interest to their parents
What factors were important in selecting your intended major/program?
Career lifestyle intellectual altruistic parental default
Career
salary
prestige
good career prospects
Lifestyle
reasonable workload, flexibility, fits with my lifestyle
intellectual
interesting
challenging work
variety
altruistic
help others
make a difference in society
Parental
Feel its a good choice
support my choice
Default
best of various options
I was admitted to the program
sort of just ended up there
very few women identify with this but more common in male law students
for business students no significant differences
Social justice
Higher for women than men
How parents may indirectly influence their children
college degree or not
The entire group of professional degrees
In contrast to either some high school, high school, or college
Mothers of law students
50% of the law students have a mother who have a professional or university degree
Mothers of business students
66% of business students, their mothers have a professional or college degree
Fathers of law students s
75% of law school fathers have a professional degree
Fathers of business students
83% of business school students fathers have a professional degree
Scheleef finds that
you are more likely to have a university degree but much less likely to have a degree to have a degree in what you are intended to get
Her results state that very few of her samples had parents working in related fields
Are they transmitting the notion of having a good education or you need to be in a specific job
Results: what our parents are transmitting to us is the value of education – a middle class value
Go beyond high school and get a degree
In terms of education we are not getting the same type as our parents, but the levels are still there
Occupations
Mothers in terms of their occupations is 30% of the law school mothers have a professional or business degree
46% of the business mothers have a professional or business degree
Are students investing in their general human capital more so than a specific occupational choice?
Are you here to get some sort of degree that will enable you to get a job
Or here for an occupational choice in mind, get the degree to allow you to get that job
Do students carefully and consciously choose their careers?
Do you feel this is your choice and making rational decisions
Or is it more because these things are just sort of happening to you, carrying you along - if so is it because of our family background
Is there a large degree of uncertainty and default involved?
She says yes, based on her interview results these law students majors are articulating to her a lot of uncertainty in terms of how they got there
Key reasons that led them to get into those programs
Does parental influence directly or indirectly influence students’ choices?
Primarily seems indirect in that our parents are conveying to us the value of having education and having a university degree
Both samples have parents who have university degrees
What they are not influencing as strongly is the specific degree you are getting
Encouraging us to go further than their education levels
